Monday, April 02, 2012

EFLI stadium news

Salt Lake Stadium
The Elite football League of India (EFLI), a new league planning on starting to play American style football this fall, who had been scheduled to play all of their games in their inaugural season in Pune, has announced that they will also be playing games in Salt Lake Stadium, West Bengal. Salt Lake Stadium is the 2nd largest stadium in the world, capable of holding 120,000 spectators.  

It may seem odd that the league is only playing in two stadiums, but it is clear from their marketing material they they intend on building their fan base via television. Another move they have recently made is bringing in Sandy Grossman, the Emmy Award-winning director who has telecast several Super Bowls. Another sign of the TV-centric approach is they also plan on using 11 cameras, which is more than used at a usual American football game.

Test matches (preseason games?) will begin in June, with the season kicking off in November.

Expansion continues to be confusing, with the press release announcing the games at Salt Lake Stadium also mentioning "nine national teams from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Rajasthan and Punjab and three international teams from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh." Pakistan and Bangledesh are new teams as far as I know.

[Source][By the way, I love their use of the word frutification in the article -- I'm going to have to work that into a conversation some how.]

1 comment:

OMMAG said...

For every soccer match and every cricket game displaced by this ... the EFLI is to be commended.............